“Mycor,” Splice breathed, kneeling.
“My Splice,” the god intoned, face shifting between bark and shadow, lichen and moss. A smile tugged at the uncanny planes of his visage. “Were you successful?”
Splice bowed his head. “I traced the distortion south of the fen. There was a surge in the undergrowth, but it corrected itself three days ago. No ruptures.”
“No rot?” Mycor asked softly.
“None.” Splice hesitated. “If that was the disturbance that woke you, it left no trace.”
Mycor turned back to the water, vines whispering across his shoulders. “Then it was not the cause.”
“No,” Splice agreed. “It was not.”
The god’s broad shoulders slumped a fraction. Splice’s heartwood twisted.
It had not been the sinkhole collapse whispered about in council minutes. Not the leyline pulse scholars had sworn was a rupture. Not the drought in the Glassgrove, nor the failed tether in the north hollow. Each rumor had seemed a reason, a call,an opportunity to set things right. And each time, the trail led nowhere. No cause. No cure. Only his god, still awake.
Mycor lifted his hand from the pond. Water trailed from his fingers, slow and dark, like sap from a wounded trunk.
“My roots ache, Splice,” he said softly. “Every time we seek the source, it is a false trail. And I wither a little more each time.”
“You have been awake longer than this before,” Splice rushed to say. “It has been half a year, yes. But when the droughts split the western groves, you did not sleep for many months more.”
What he did not say—what neither of them said—was the difference. Back then, the land had screamed and Mycor had answered. This time, there had been no scream. Only stillness that became more and more suffocating with each passing day.
“I remember.” Mycor’s voice was thick, as though dragged up from deep soil. “The worms surfaced and suffocated. The trees wept for weeks. Even the stones curled in on themselves.”
Splice remained kneeling, gaze fixed on the slow movement of his god’s hand through the water. Through the tether they shared, he felt the unease. The fatigue. The ache beneath Mycor’s calm.
The thought stuck like a splinter:What happens if we can’t find your reason for waking?
Was that even possible? Could a god wake for no reason? Could he—fail to wake properly? Could he?—?
Splice cut the thought short, clenching his jaw so hard it ached. No. That was not the shape of things. Gods did not die. Mycor was not dying. Of course not.
There was a reason. There had to be. They just hadn’t uncovered it yet.
“I will continue searching,” he said quickly, the words tumbling, his voice wavering. “There is still much to uncover. I will find it. Whatever it is… I shall keep looking.”
The god only watched the water, fingers trailing once more through the surface, slower now. Then, finally, he nodded.
Splice didn’t wait for more. He rose in a jolt, bowed stiffly, and fled. His footsteps struck too loud against the marble, each one a hammer-blow betraying his haste. The sconces along the corridor guttered violently as he passed, as though Greymarket itself disapproved of his retreat.
But he had to get out. He had to get away.
His heartwood thudded too hard, breath scraping shallow. The more he tried to steady himself, the more he slipped. Thoughts scattered, jagged and useless:What if we never find the cause? What if he stays waking, withering, until?—
By the time he reached the stairwell, he was trembling. Up, up, up—one flight, two, five, ten—at last, he shoved open the iron-framed door to the rooftop garden and staggered into the light.
At once, the world softened. The air was warm, sun-steeped and rich with green and sweet loam and the faint thrum of chlorophyll in motion.
Splice exhaled, long and deep, his breath shuddering out of him, and felt his chest loosen.
The garden pulsed with life. Ferns twisted lazily along the stone planters, their fronds humming just below hearing. Bioluminescent moss covered one wall like a mural depicting seasons that had never existed. A row of squat, blue-leaved trees leaned together in conspiratorial angles, one of them blinking owlishly towards Splice.
The Assistant walked deeper into the green, letting the sun slide over his skin like a balm. He made his way to a bench shaped from reclaimed wood and what appeared to be a retired council podium. A cluster of star-shaped flowers bloomed beside it in shades of silver and blush, exhaling something faintly minty into the late afternoon air.
He sat and let the air fill him as the voices of the garden, the soft rustle of leaf and life, sang to him.
